Sensorly - New market deployements

[boomerbubba]

Sensorly collects signal strength on 2G/3G connections. That's been available the whole time. I thought it stated that on the app?

 

I guess I never noticed that because I never used it for 2G/3G. But the LTE display is certainly new.

 

As for LTE, I know it is more difficult to harvest data reliably across platforms because the Android API is not so well developed. And several apps mess up some details when they are reporting LTE connections. So I would feel better about Sensorly if they would "show their work" and let me as a user see a local log file in standardized units.

[bitslizer]

Yea its a lot harder to see the purple spots now, with the exception of Chicago. Its the only dark purple in the US.

 

if you zoom in enough, its shown as light purple also

[ken830]

Great to see Sensorly here.

 

I wanted to know if there is some way we can access nearby speed-test results by clicking on a spot on the map?

[zionzr2]

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed the color changes.

[sensorly]

What happens when users report new data?

 

IE: Say an area on sensorly says there is wimax, because in 2010, a phone found wimax there.

 

But then say the tower is broken and clear wont fix it, so when a new user goes by, it reports no signal.

 

 

At any point, does the new data replace the old?

Not at the moment no. We're working on an expiration algorithm. But it needs to work while still allowing fast updates. It's taking a little longer than planned.

[Dkoellerwx]

Sensory,

 

Have you changed the way that Sprint's LTE maps are displayed? The purple is extremely light on most zoom levels, and very hard to see. However on one level, it looks like signal strength data was collected. Was that intentional?

 

 

[sensorly]

But it didn't apply for LTE because the signal strength can't be reliably collected. I'm wondering if something just went wrong? It's made it incredibly hard to read. I did notice something weird in Chicago....

Good catches everyone. We've just starting showing LTE signal strength (RSRP).

What you're seeing is the artefact of having tens of millions of little images to update. It's being updated in real time and should be finished by tomorrow (there are only about 60.000 images to update on Sprint at the moment)

 

Yes, the Android APIs are deficient for this but we found a way to harvest the information out of 90% of the datapoints we receive. We'll be deciding what we do with data points that show 4G but don't provide the signal strength in a couple days. We're open to input of course.

Edited October 8, 2012 by sensorly

[Dkoellerwx]

Good catches everyone. We've just starting showing LTE signal strength (RSRP).

What you're seeing is the artefact of having tens of millions of little images. It takes less than 24h so you're seeing it being updated real time.

 

Yes, the Android APIs are deficient for this but we found a way to harvest the information out of 90% of the datapoints we receive. We'll be deciding what we do with data points that show 4G but don't provide the signal strength in a couple days. We're open to input of course.

 

Very cool. I'll be patient then! Have noticed it changing throughout the day.

[sensorly]

Any plans to add iOS support soon?

We have an iOS app that shows the maps and has the speed test stuff.

But apple doesn't provide apis for collecting signal strength and, although we have found some hidden APIs, they wouldn't be allowed on the appstore

[sensorly]

I wanted to know if there is some way we can access nearby speed-test results by clicking on a spot on the map?

That'd be neat, wouldn't it

It would be problematic for the iOS tests though because we wouldn't be able to show whether they're LTE on not..

[S4GRU]

We have an iOS app that shows the maps and has the speed test stuff.

But apple doesn't provide apis for collecting signal strength and, although we have found some hidden APIs, they wouldn't be allowed on the appstore

 

Mystery solved. Thanks for the feedback!

 

Robert

[the_rocker]

Yes, the Android APIs are deficient for this but we found a way to harvest the information out of 90% of the datapoints we receive. We'll be deciding what we do with data points that show 4G but don't provide the signal strength in a couple days. We're open to input of course.

How are you determining signal strength?

 

I have a WiMAX phone, and I was able to see the source code for the WiMAX dm hidden app which displays RSSI and CINR through the use of dex2jar and jdec... I've heard the APIs differ between phones, but I would expect some consistency between phones from the same manufacturer. I would expect something similar for LTE...

[rwong48]

Glad I'm not the only one noticing the new colors. It's really hard to spot things in the Bay Area now (what used to previously be darker purple and a good signal.) I hope this is temporary, or even reverted. The colors become way darker once I zoom in enough, which is also inconsistent.

 

BTW, thanks to Sensorly for adding descriptions ("2G-3G", "WIMAX", and "LTE") to the 3 Sprint items in the coverage map list. This makes it much more convenient to find the LTE map.

I'm glad they renamed one of the "4G"s to "WiMAX", but I'd also like the remaining "4G" to say "LTE" or "4G LTE", for clarity's sake. Am I the only one who thinks so?

 

Though it would probably have to be changed for all carriers, for consistency's sake, if Sensorly decided to do so.

[Cpeatridge]

 

We have an iOS app that shows the maps and has the speed test stuff.

But apple doesn't provide apis for collecting signal strength and, although we have found some hidden APIs, they wouldn't be allowed on the appstore

 

You could put something out through cydia once a jailbreak is formed for iOS 6

[mc_gusto]

When you do a speed test without turning on mapping, does it map it anyway? I think would catch a lot of new ause I think some people use it to speedtest but not map.

 

Sent from my cm_tenderloin using Tapatalk 2

[zionzr2]

....

 

I'm glad they renamed one of the "4G"s to "WiMAX", but I'd also like the remaining "4G" to say "LTE" or "4G LTE", for clarity's sake. Am I the only one who thinks so?...

 

I would agree!!!

[MacinJosh]

We have an iOS app that shows the maps and has the speed test stuff.

But apple doesn't provide apis for collecting signal strength and' date=' although we have found some hidden APIs, they wouldn't be allowed on the appstore [/quote']

 

What about writing them in for a jailbreak version of the app for when the iPhone 5 jailbreak is released to the general public? Those who jailbreak their iPhones would love to be able to contribute to Sensorly maps.

 

Sent from my LG Viper 4G LTE using Forum Runner

[MacinJosh]

 

You could put something out through cydia once a jailbreak is formed for iOS 6

 

IOS 6 is already jailbroken. The iPhone 5 jailbreak just hasn't been released yet. I'm hoping soon.

 

Sent from my LG Viper 4G LTE using Forum Runner

[PythonFanPA]

Why does the indication of coverage area change depending on how far in or out you zoom sometimes on the coverage map? (Example: The couple of blips just east of Memphis proper will show you specifically what I mean...there's one specific zoom amount where you see the actual fully mapped coverage so far...zoom in one notch further and you only get one cylindrical patch showing off the southwest corner of I-40 & exit 16...zoom out one notch from the full coverage showing and you see the aforementioned cylindrical patch plus one more patch between the legend symbols for Hwy 64 and SR15)

[zionzr2]

Why does the indication of coverage area change depending on how far in or out you zoom sometimes on the coverage map? (Example: The couple of blips just east of Memphis proper will show you specifically what I mean...there's one specific zoom amount where you see the actual fully mapped coverage so far...zoom in one notch further and you only get one cylindrical patch showing off the southwest corner of I-40 & exit 16...zoom out one notch from the full coverage showing and you see the aforementioned cylindrical patch plus one more patch between the legend symbols for Hwy 64 and SR15)

 

a few posts back: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/2224-sensorly-new-market-deployements/page__view__findpost__p__53529

[PythonFanPA]

Ahh thanks, I read that earlier today but didn't realize that's what it was specifically referring to....what I get for trying to cram catch-up when busy heh.

[sensorly]

How are you determining signal strength?

We are using undocumented APIs, similar to what we did for Wimax info.

If you go to the details screen, you will see the info we get. It depends on the phones.

[sensorly]

When you do a speed test without turning on mapping, does it map it anyway? I think would catch a lot of new ause I think some people use it to speedtest but not map. Sent from my cm_tenderloin using Tapatalk 2

Yes it does : when the app is running, if the user opted-in to collecting data and there is a GPS signal good enough, it will map.

[sensorly]

Glad I'm not the only one noticing the new colors. It's really hard to spot things in the Bay Area now (what used to previously be darker purple and a good signal.) I hope this is temporary, or even reverted. The colors become way darker once I zoom in enough, which is also inconsistent. I'm glad they renamed one of the "4G"s to "WiMAX", but I'd also like the remaining "4G" to say "LTE" or "4G LTE", for clarity's sake. Am I the only one who thinks so? Though it would probably have to be changed for all carriers, for consistency's sake, if Sensorly decided to do so.

The new colors should now be available on the Sprint map (it has finished redrawing). You may encounter a couple patches of the very faint color, that's because some phones didn't report signal strength and we haven't yet decided how to handle that.

As for the naming, that's what we planned to do but in the site's current form, it's harder than we thought. We have to make some changes to the site and we have lots of stuff to do first.

[modplan]

Sensorly,

 

Can you PLEASE give us the option to start mapping as soon as the App starts? just a checkbox in the settings would work.

 

That way I can make it automatically map in the background EVERY TIME i put my phone in my car dock. I drive all over the US and could map a lot of data and I think others would use this feature as well.